Regrettables
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [post] He doesn't regret anything. Except he must, because only those who died holding on to regrets wind up in the Afterlife.


**A/N:** Always wanted to write Kouichi appearing in the Afterlife, and now here it is. :D Written for the Crossover Boot Camp, #003 – clear.

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 **Regrettables**

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He doesn't regret anything. Except he must, because only those who died holding on to regrets wind up in the Afterlife.

He'd tried so hard to let go of them too. He'd felt them, tearing like cotton wool in thorns as it left. Surely that had been enough. Surely they'd gone – he'd let go –

But that boy in front of him – or he wasn't really a boy, was he? Or maybe he was. Everyone is student age here, he explained. Student age – eighteen at the most. But he was surprised too. When an eleven year old had shown up in the Afterlife. It was a high school. He was still an elementary school student.

'I was going to the university,' the boy – who'd introduced himself as the school council president – says. 'I just needed to pass those exams and I'd have been in…' His voice trailed off. 'Funny how that worked out.'

There is a pause. Not awkward, like he expects it to be, but inviting. As though it wants him to ask the question. And reply in kind.

But this place, despite it being a place where the regretting dead go, seems…normal. And his tale is not. If he hasn't lived it he's not sure he would have believed…but it's the truth and he has lived it and that is how the story goes.

'You're lost in thought,' the council president remarks.

He offers an awkward grin. He hasn't forgotten the conversation – but sitting like this, having only one person to talk to and their entire attention on you – isn't something he's ever been used to. Even in the digital world, it was groups. Cherubimon's warriors. His friends. Or it had been Cherubimon, whispering from the shadows. He wasn't sure he'd seen the face long enough to remember it until the artefact had derailed them. The shadow, the outline of his form and that voice, had been telling enough.

'I was wondering how you'd react to my story,' he replies. It'll come out anyway. And he supposes it won't matter the reaction. Or maybe it will. He hasn't seen many people after having friends. Maybe something in the way he perceives these interactions has changed, but he hasn't realised it yet.

'Is it that unbelievable?' The president's lips quirk. 'Did you know you can make things here from dirt?'

He blinks. No, he hadn't known that. Maybe his story isn't so wild.

'It's the fantasy adventure manga sort of wild,' he warns.

'Hatsune liked manga,' the president replies. 'My sister,' he adds, then asks: 'do you want to talk?'

Not talk about it. Just talk.

'And introduce yourself perhaps.'

Now the president sounds amused and he flushes. He can't believe he's forgotten to do that. 'I'm Kimura Kouichi,' he says. The other had mentioned his name when someone had dragged him to the office and deposited him at the other's feet, but he hadn't been paying attention.

The age had come up simply because he wasn't much more than half the other's height.

The president tests his name against his tongue. 'Kimura Kouichi.' Then, perhaps catching something in the expression, he adds: 'Otonashi Yuzuru. That's Otonashi as in "no sound", and Yuzuru as in "to tie a bow".'

Kouichi thinks it's an unusual surname, but can see how it can wind up amusedly ironic as well. 'Do you play an instrument?' The question slips out before he can catch it.

Yuzuru laughs. 'Not me,' he says. 'Some of my friends did. Iwasawa. Yui…' He nods towards a picture frame and Kouichi glances politely. Something in their faces makes him uncomfortable. 'Do you miss your friends?'

'I – ' Really, he's only been in the Afterlife for an hour. If that. 'I didn't want to leave them.'

'And is that a regret?' There is a serious lint in the president's tone now. And the prelude has led Kouichi to understand _why_.

'I don't regret dying,' Kouichi says plainly. 'Given the chance to go back, I'd do it all again so it doesn't change.' He doesn't say "so long as". He's sure they've won. He's sure he understood the situation correctly. He's sure everything, but this, has worked out. And this couldn't have changed. He was dead before he even went to the Digital World. Maybe the Digital World had been like this Afterlife for him.

'Digital World?' Yuzuru cocks his head, saying the term like it was a foreign one. To him perhaps it was.

Kouichi explains, or rather, he gives an abbreviated version of the tale. The president needs that information to understand the situation but no more, none of the more personal, fragile, bits. Not yet anyhow. Perhaps not ever. Perhaps some of those were things that couldn't even pass the boundary between friends, between family.

Like how he'd been a bodiless spirit in the Digital World. A ghost. And like how lonely he'd been. But both of those things he'd alluded to in the end. Maybe they've realised by now. Or they haven't. It's okay either way, he thinks. It wasn't that they needed to know. Those words had just needed to be said.

'I said what I needed to say,' he said. 'I did what I needed to do. 'kaa-san will be sad, I'm sure. But Kouji will be there. And he won't be – ' He catches himself and is almost horrified. That is definitely one of the too personal things to share with an almost stranger, but they've been toeing so close to that line.

'You think the good outweighs the bad,' Yuzuru volunteers. Maybe he's guessed more. Maybe he hasn't.

'Something like that,' Kouichi agrees. 'Everyone dies. It's just a question of when.'

'No.' Yuzuru shakes their head. 'Everyone dies, is reborn, and dies again. It's an endless cycle of reincarnation broken only when regrets pull us here, as an interim.'

'Really.' Kouichi wonders how much he likes that idea. 'Endless makes a single life seem…inadequate.'

'Maybe it's not the truth.' Yuzuru shrugs. 'It's a hypothesis. Just like the existence of a God, or lack thereof, is a hypothesis.' His voice grows melancholic, as though he is thinking of something past, something precious. 'I think there's something precious in forming bonds that last through multiple lifetimes. Bonds that can stretch to the Afterlife…and beyond it.' He glances at the photo again. 'I like to think that, anyhow.'

'It's a nice thought,' Kouichi agrees. He needs time to form his own opinion, now that he has more information – or possibilities – at his disposal.

'Maybe it's enough,' Yuzuru adds. He looks hopeful.

Kouichi doesn't immediately understand.

'Enough to find your inner peace,' he elaborates.

'I thought I'd found that before I…died.' Kouichi looks at his lap. Had he gotten that good at lying, in the end? Had he been able to lie to himself so well he'd believed it?

'I don't often hear that answer,' says Yuzuru. 'Truthfully, not everyone in the Afterlife is an NPC or someone who died with regrets. Perhaps regrets isn't even the right word. Maybe Kanade said it better. Lingering emotions – except that can't be true either, because then we'd only be able to move on when we reached a state of unfeelingness…'

'I wonder if that's even possible.' Kouichi is sure he's thinking of something entirely different to Yuzuru with that statement, but there is still an understanding that humankind seems incapable of such a feat.

'Something will work out,' Yuzuru stands up and walks to the window, where the school courtyard spreads. 'Now, since we can't exactly throw an elementary student in with tenth graders, NPC or not – ' He breaks off suddenly, staring out the window.

Kouichi stands curiously and looks out the window too. He sees nothing unusual – but then again, he's a new arrival. He hasn't really learnt what "unusual" is in this place.

But Yuzuru does. 'That building wasn't there before.'

And they go to check it out, and suddenly, Yuzuru laughs. 'The world's built a middle school for you.'

'I was only three months into my fifth year,' Kouichi says, suddenly feeling intimidated. Somehow, dealing with a grade twice his own seems more reasonable than one nine months ahead. Or more, depending on what part of the year they're at.

No elementary school suddenly appears, but a few students come out, chatting to each other. They take no notice of the pair of them as they walk to the fountain, fill up their water bottles, and then go back.

'I'm guessing the world thinks you can cope,' Yuzuru says, once they've vanished. 'Or something. Sometimes I don't know what I believe about this place. It's confusing.'

It certainly is that, Kouichi thinks, staring at his apparently new school. He's not sure why he's even going to school. But what else is there to do? Until he can sort himself out anyway. Sort out whether he does have regrets or lingering emotions or something that's not peace. Sort out what brought him here and what's keeping him here.

But with only NPCs in class, programmed to act a certain way and fill in the space in an otherwise unstable world… He supposes it won't be too different than how school had previously been.

'You can come to the student council room whenever you need someone to talk to,' Yuzuru says suddenly. 'I'll be there.'

Kouichi stares at the middle school building again. It looks less intimidating now. Is it because of the invitation, he wonders? Seeing those students chatting like there was nothing abnormal at all.

'Don't worry about living quarters and food and all,' Yuzuru continues. 'A dorm will be assigned to you and you'll get an allowance that you can use to buy your meals. And there aren't any Operation Tornadoes anymore.'

'Operation Tornadoes?' Kouichi repeats. 'This is a storm area?'

'Oh, no.' Yuzuru shakes his head. 'I thought that too when I first heard it. Operation Tornado is when we'd use fans to steal all the students' meal tickets. Because we couldn't do the normal thing and accept our allowance.'

Kouichi is sure he's sprouting a blank expression on his face, because he still doesn't understand. Not at all.

'For us back then, it was a rebellion against God,' the other explained. 'For giving us unfair lives and unfair deaths and denying – delaying, now we know – our second chance for something better. But then we learnt that what was stopping us was that we hadn't made peace with our lives, and our deaths. And that's the message I pass on, to everyone who's come after.'

And now he's here and that message has come to him.

He's still confused, and curious, but the weight of this Afterlife is starting to collect and he suddenly wants some time to himself. To sleep. To remember his friends and family and sort out how he's really feeling. And what he wants from this place, now that he's here. 'I'll come to the student council room,' he says. 'Maybe tomorrow…or the day after.' He wonders if he can skip school today to settle in, or something like that.

'Can you find your way?' Yuzuru asks. 'And you'll be okay going to the principal by yourself?'

Kouichi nods to both those questions.

'Okay.' Yuzuru nods too, then sticks out his hand. 'Then welcome to the Afterlife.'


End file.
